School superintendents and district personnel would do well to leave the comfort of their offices and spend more time walking the halls of the schools within their jurisdictions. While it is true that these school officials have a tremendous amount of reporting and administrative responsibilities on a daily basis, it is equally true that their decision-making and management would be enhanced significantly if they are able to integrate their actual observations with input from school personnel into their plans and strategies. Like so many managers in other professions and industries, superintendents need to skip or cancel some of those meetings, leave those administrative offices, and walk the halls of schools. An effective superintendent can’t possibly know what’s going on without actually feeling the pulse of the schools that make up a school district. School visitations that are regularly scheduled or conducted on a surprise basis can help district leaders gain a clearer and more informed understanding of how to allocate finite resources optimally across schools as they observe and interact with local school administrators and teaching professionals. Corporate executives whose operations extend across hundreds of stores or subsidiaries tend to be very much committed to visiting a representative number of their branch operations each year. This allows them to see firsthand what’s working or not across their network. More importantly, their willingness to stay close to the daily operations of local enterprises enables them to make better decisions and gain a more informed sense about the critical concerns of both company personnel and customers. As they feel the rhythm of daily school operations, superintendents can advocate better as they engage school boards and state education officials around cost requirements associated with areas such as curriculums, classroom pedagogy, and school logistics.

Educators and policymakers should beware of the possibility of becoming too isolated from the new realities of school life or becoming comfortable with business as usual, as this could lead to policymaking and programming that makes very little sense in existing school contexts. The systems and processes that may have worked well when a superintendent presided over a local school may not be as useful five or ten years later. Much of the paperwork and hierarchical constraints that tend to bog down school administrators might be alleviated if district personnel appreciated more how this impedes the daily success of school operations. By streamlining and decentralizing processes such as procurement and facilities management, local schools would be able to address more expediently broken HVAC systems or the need for additional classroom furniture. Administrators and classroom teachers should not have to wait days before they get technology support to solve computer problems in the classrooms. The persistent inability of district offices to make quicker decisions related to hiring always hinders the work of the administrator, teacher, and student. The bureaucratic requirements in school systems are unconscionable especially when you consider the pace at which information and transactions are being processed in everyday life. The spending authority given to principals may be sufficient but what they need more than anything are organizational structures that give them the flexibility and authority to be the school leaders that they are capable of. As school and classroom capacities continue to be strained and state budgets get tighter, district leaders must gain micro perspectives about the activities and operations of schools, if their goals are to manage and supervise shrinking dollars more prudently. A hands-on district leadership and management approach can produce the strong dividends that we all hope for in school systems all across this country.